United fail to deliver Boxing Day KO
IF ever three points were there for the taking, it was at Hillsborough. And don't Newcastle United know it.
Chris Hughton's side won't face a shakier defence all season, and they knew this as they filed out of the stadium, having been held to a 2-2 draw.
Put simply, Newcastle were a long, long way from their best in South Yorkshire.
Of course, on another day they would have taken two more points back up the motorway to Tyneside, referee Stuart Attwell having failed to punish a foul on goalkeeper Steve Harper in the build-up to Sheffield Wednesday's second-half equaliser.
Yet that decision wasn't the whole story. United's own second goal should also have been scrubbed off, Shola Ameobi coming back from an offside position to take Jonas Gutierrez's pass.
Wednesday had started the better, and they deserved their early lead, which came thanks to a headed goal from Luke Varney.
Newcastle hit back quickly through Kevin Nolan and Ameobi, and at the break, they looked in total control, the only question mark over just how many they would score in the second half.
As it was, they rarely troubled Lee Grant in the home goal, Sean McAuley's side having got a grip on the game after the restart.
It meant a second successive 2-2 draw away from home, United having been held at Barnsley a fortnight earlier.
That's no disaster in itself, as in doing so, Newcastle stretched their unbeaten run to 10 games.
And at the halfway point of the Championship season, an eight-point lead, while anything but insurmountable, is something of which Hughton's players can be rightly proud.
They're not the best footballing team in the division – that moniker falls to West Bromwich Albion – but they're the best by any other measure.
No one can match them for sheer grit and determination. And no one can match them for quality up front – or at the back, something borne out by the league table.
Promotion will take a lot more of that between now and the end of the season, but it's a quality United, despite everything that's gone on in the last year, seem to possess in abundance.
And if Newcastle United's festive dip in form amounts to a couple of draws away from St James's Park, then fans can still toast the New Year in more in expectation that fear, something they couldn't do 12 months ago.
SHEFFIELD WEDSNESDAY: Grant; Simek, Purse, Beevers, Spurr; Soares, O'Connor, Potter, Johnson (Esajas, 62), Varney (Clarke, 69); Tudgay. Subs not used: O'Donnell, Buxton, Hinds, Jeffers, Gray.
NEWCASTLE UNITED: Harper; Simpson, S Taylor, Coloccini, Enrique; Guthrie, Butt, Nolan, Gutierrez (Pancrate, 63); Harewood (Lovenkrands, 85), Ameobi (Carroll, 73). Subs not used: Krul, Kadar, R Taylor, Ranger.
Goals: Varney 14, Nolan 19, Ameobi 22
Bookings: Varney 36, Tudgay 75
Sent off: None
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Nuneaton)
Attendance: 30,030
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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